


A Galleon For Your Thoughts

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 19:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7587268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke catches Bellamy sneaking off Hogwarts grounds, but then the strangest thing happens: they become friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Galleon For Your Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> Forgot to drop this note in the last fic but huge thanks to any and all who nominated me in the Bellarke Fanfiction Awards! I'm really grateful for such an awesome community here.
> 
> Also, I'm back on [tumblr](http://katchyalater.tumblr.com) now so if you have prompts or just want to be friends you should hmu :)

“And just where do you think you’re going?”

Bellamy cringes as he backs away from the statue of the one-eyed witch. He knows that voice.

“Nowhere,” he says, injecting as much gruffness into his tone as he can under the circumstances.

It’s the voice he uses when he’s giving commands on the Quidditch pitch, the one he used to use when he was trying to impress upon a young Octavia the importance of not exposing magic to muggles. He knows it rings with authority, but he also knows– from experience– that it will completely fail to impress Clarke Griffin.

She’s sitting on the floor opposite the witch’s statue, tucked into a hidden nook and twirling her wand in her hands.

“That’s not a suspicious answer.”

“About as suspicious as lurking in the darkened corners of the castle,” he shoots back. “We’re prefects, Griffin. Not ghouls.”

Her smile grows as she picks herself up from where she’s sitting, dusting invisible lint from her perfect, ink-black robes. He wills himself not to look down at the ratty robes he’s wearing.

They were already secondhand when he bought them, but they’ve faded from too many hours sitting next to the biggest window in the library. They’re singed from harmless mock-dueling with Murphy and from his and Raven’s combined lack of skills at potions. (It’s laughable how awful they are, when she’s one of the brightest witches of their age, but at the beginning of each school year they choose each other as partners anyway. They’re both too stubborn to just roll over and admit defeat.)

He wants to feel fond when he thinks about how lived-in his robes are, wants to wear the marks like proof that he is actually a wizard. He belongs. But then he sees the impeccable Clarke Griffin and he can’t help but revert to his eleven-year-old self standing in the Great Hall for the first time and feeling like a muggle playing dress-up.

Not that she tries to make him feel that way. But from the first time he’d seen her, standing at Platform 9¾, chattering to all the kids she already knew, proudly showing off how she could already make sparks fly from her wand, he could see she knew her place in this world.

Of course, in typical Bellamy fashion he covered up his insecurity with all the false bravado an eleven-year-old could muster and burned the bridge between them before it even had the chance to be built. He doesn’t know how to go about building it now.

“I’ve seen you sneak away before dinner every night this week,” she says, crossing her arms and giving him the look that makes first years quail and fall in line.

“And you thought you’d catch me in the act? Bring me to the headmaster?”

“No,” she frowns. “My default assumption isn’t that you’re breaking the rules, Bellamy. I wanted to make sure you were okay. That you didn’t need–- help.” She stumbles over the last bit, looking smaller and less sure of herself than he’s maybe ever seen her. A smile tugs at his lips.

“I’m fine, Clarke. I’m just late.”

“Late for what?” When he hesitates, she adds, “If you don’t tell me I’ll probably just follow you.”

“You’ll get in trouble.”

Her eyebrows fly up.

“But you won’t?”

“I’ve been given special permission.”

“Then how come you’re sneaking out through the Honeydukes passage?” At his stunned look, she smirks. “Monty told Jasper, who told me.”

“Of course he did,” Bellamy rolls his eyes.

He should’ve known better than to think Monty wouldn’t tell his childhood friend about the secret tunnel behind the one-eyed witch. He doesn’t know Jasper well. Monty is in Hufflepuff with Bellamy but clever Jasper got sorted into Slytherin, the same house that Clarke is in. Jasper is all kinetic energy, mind constantly racing with complex pranks and clever schemes. Bellamy doesn’t know most of the time whether the Sorting Hat classified that as Slytherin cunning or if it  was merely trying to separate the two pranksters for the preservation of the school.

“So what’s with the secrecy?”

“Trying to avoid talks like this,” Bellamy huffs. “I’m going to the Three Broomsticks.”

“You got permission to leave school grounds for a nightly butterbeer?”

“Firewhisky.”

“Bellamy.”

“I have a job, okay?” His voice suddenly feels too loud for the tiny stone corridor they’re tucked into and he’s worried Filch is going to round the corner any second. Just because the headmaster talked the professors into turning a blind eye toward Bellamy’s breaking the rules, doesn’t mean Filch will feel the same way. “I’m working there. You happy? Interrogation over?”

“A job?” She repeats, dumbfounded. Like she’s never heard the word before.

“Yeah, Princess. A job. Now can I–” He gestures to the one-eyed witch and she steps aside absently.

“Sorry. Yeah. I don’t want to make you late.”

“Thanks.”

He taps the witch’s hump with his wand and mutters the password, watching with satisfaction as she moves aside for him to slip behind her. The last thing he sees is Clarke’s face, pinched in concentration, watching him go.

 

He expects the world to know after that.

Well, maybe not the whole world. His world is pretty small. Clarke Griffin is not really a part of it usually; she’s just someone he knows. Someone he spends a lot of time wondering about, particularly when he sees her laughing with Wells from Gryffindor in the corridors, or when she’s listening to the Head Boy or Girl give instructions at prefect meetings like it’s the most serious task in the world, or when she doodles what he would swear are _Pokemon_ in the margins of her notes.

They don’t interact much, but he knows she’s friends with Raven, and with Octavia’s friend Lincoln (whom he is refusing to call her boyfriend until she is at least fifteen), so he’s expecting them to come to him with _some_ kind of reaction.

Yet life continues as normal.

He’s tense all through potions, waiting for Raven to bring it up. She doesn’t. He’s tense every time O passes him on her way to class or waves from across the Great Hall, waiting for her to rip him a new one. She doesn’t.

He can’t figure it out.

It’s almost a relief when Clarke plunks herself down beside him under his favorite tree and says, “How can you have a job at a pub when you’re not even of age?” Because at least he’s not waiting for the other shoe to drop anymore.

He eyes Monty, who’s wading far enough out into the lake that he can feed the giant squid. Far enough that he can’t overhear them.

“A friend of mine–- do you remember Gina Martin? She graduated a couple of years ago. She’s bartending there a few nights a week and she hooked me up with it.“ He hesitates before he shares the next part, but she did ask. “I’m the busboy,” he confesses. “I don’t even go near the alcohol. I charm the bin to float around between tables a couple of times an hour, and then I run the washing and drying and restocking spells.”

“Teach me your ways,” she snorts. Which is not what he was expecting her to say. “I’m terrible at housekeeping spells, and it shows. You should see my dorm.”

He’s not flushing. It’s just warm. In the shade. In late autumn. That’s all.

“You didn’t mention it to anybody,” he says tentatively.

“Why would I tell anybody? It was pretty obvious you didn’t want to be seen.” She pauses, debating with herself. “I don’t know why you’d keep it a secret from your sister or your friends, but I figure that’s your business.”

Bellamy releases a long sigh, head knocking back against the tree trunk.

“It’s embarrassing,” he admits. “I mean, it’s not as embarrassing as not being able to afford school supplies, or even to wear ratty robes.” He gestures to himself and she frowns, scoping it out. He shouldn’t have brought it up. “It’s just another reminder that I’m muggleborn. Not from this world. I mean, who do you know that has to get a _job_ on top of all their schoolwork?”

Her blue eyes are so sharp and clear as she studies him that he’s certain she can see right through him.

“Octavia’s a third year?” She asks. It’s a little like whiplash, having this conversation with her.

“Yeah.”

“She gets to go to on Hogsmeade trips starting this year.”

“Yeah.” He exhales again. “I just want her to be able to– I don’t know. Eat so much candy she gets sick, play jokes on her friends with stuff from Zonko’s or Weasley’s. Do whatever she wants. Whatever her friends get to do.”

“And the Three Broomsticks pays in galleons instead of muggle money,” Clarke says knowingly. “Where does Octavia think you’re getting it?”

“I told her I did what we always do: exchange it at Gringotts. She thinks it’s my savings from this summer.”

“It’s not?”

He shakes his head.

“I spent that on our books.”

“Wow.” Clarke lets her own perfect head with her perfect blonde waves fall back against the tree trunk. “What about prefect stuff?”

He feels his hackles rising and he can’t do a thing about it.

“What about it?”

“Calm down.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m not accusing you of slacking off. I’m asking if you’re able to cover all your patrol shifts. Because if you can’t, you can ask me to cover for you.”

“Really?”

“Sure,” she shrugs. Like it’s no big deal. “You wouldn’t have to make up an excuse since I’d know why you needed to switch.”

Bellamy frowns at her for a second, trying to figure her out, then decides bluntness is the way to go. He’s always received it from her.

“Why do you care? We’re not really friends.”

Her smile is brighter and warmer than the sun filtering through the dry leaves above them. She doesn’t seem bothered at all.

“Why can’t we be?” She asks.

And he doesn’t have an answer for that.

It feels to Bellamy like being friends with Clarke Griffin knocks his smallish world off its little axis, but in reality, not much changes. She slots in like there was an empty, Clarke-shaped hole just waiting to be filled.

She starts following Jasper to the Hufflepuff table for breakfast on the weekends, tossing Bellamy a lot of raised eyebrows when Monty tries to ask casually about her friend Nathan. Miller, as he’s known to his Quidditch opponents, is in Gryffindor with Wells, and sometimes she and Monty will go sit at their table on Saturday mornings instead.

She takes his patrols whenever he needs her to, starts studying across the table from him at the library, even gets Octavia to come sit with them one day when she and Lincoln are having a staring contest while simultaneously drawing portraits of one another with their wands in the air. It’s the longest his sister has voluntarily hung out with him at school-– she usually claims his nerdiness will ruin her cool reputation while he calls her a bratty tween-– and he knows he has Clarke to thank for it.

What really shakes him with its normalcy is when he shows up to potions to see her sitting next to Raven, heads bent over parchment.

“You’re either very lost in the homework or you’re plotting world domination,” he says flatly, sliding into his customary place on Raven’s left. Clarke looks up and flashes him a smile that’s-- well, it’s unsettling, but not for the same reasons it would have been a month ago.

“Shut up Blake, she’s showing me how to not make our potion blow up. Don’t you want to go a week without visiting the infirmary?”

“Oh, and I can also teach you some of the basic healing spells,” Clarke puts in. “My mom works at St Mungo’s and she wanted me to learn the basic principles of magical first aid as early as possible. You really don’t need to go to the infirmary every time.”

“Yeah, but then I wouldn’t get to miss as much of History of Magic,” says Bellamy.

“Please.” Raven rolls her eyes. “You aren’t fooling anyone. You love that class.”

“He would,” Clarke snorts.

Bellamy is glad it’s so dark in the dungeons because he’s sure he has an odd look on his face. Instead of making eye contact with either of the girls, he slides Raven’s textbook closer so he can read the notes Clarke has penned in the margins.

“We might actually pass the final with tips like these,” he tells Raven.

“Pass?” Clarke snorts. “You’re going to ace it.”

“And what do you get out of it?”

“Raven is helping me with Muggle Studies.”

Bellamy gives his friend a look. She shrugs innocently.

“They let me use computers,” she says, grinning. “I showed the professor how an iPod works and how to hook it up to bluetooth speakers and now we get to listen to actual good music for an hour a week.”

“What about you?” He asks Clarke.

“What about me?”

“How come you’re taking Muggle Studies? Rumor in the corridors is that you want to follow in your mom’s footsteps, and it’s not exactly a requisite course.”

Clarke bites her lip just as Professor Sinclair clears his throat to start the class.

“Ask me again sometime,” she whispers, collecting her things and scurrying back to slide in next to Wells. But she’s got double potions, and Bellamy has to run to get to Ancient Runes, and he doesn’t get the chance right away. They’re always around other people when they pass each other over the next few days, and though she waves and he smiles, they don’t get much of a chance to chat.

At least, not until that weekend, when there so happens to be a Hogsmeade visit.

Bellamy took back-to-back shifts, hoping to make the most of his free day, so he’s not expecting to spend much time with his friends. Which is maybe why he’s so surprised when Clarke lets herself into the kitchen just after the lunch rush.

“Hi,” she says, grinning as she hops up onto the counter, her legs swinging free. Bellamy has to blink to make sure she’s really there.

“Hey.”

“I thought I’d come keep you company since I’m the only one who knows you’re here.”

“Yeah, thanks for not telling my sister. Most of my friends wouldn’t care, but I think she’d feel bad and that counteracts my whole…” he waves his hand vaguely. “...carefree childhood thing I’m aiming for, for her.”

“No problem,” Clarke shrugs. “I saw her head up toward the Shrieking Shack with Anya and Indra. I’m pretty sure they’re scarier than any ghoul or goblin living up there, so she seems like she’s in good hands.”

He lets himself smile at her. It’s a new thing he’s trying, showing someone how he feels instead of hiding behind the bravado he put on at eleven and never figured out how to take off. It slips from his face more often around Clarke, and he’s pretty sure he knows what that means.

“So, this is the glamorous life of Bellamy Blake, huh?” She asks, looking around with obvious interest. “I assume you don’t want to be working here forever or you wouldn’t be subjecting yourself to the potions N.E.W.T.”

“Definitely not,” he agrees. “I’m working toward a job in the Ministry’s archaeology department.”

“You know, that makes a lot of sense.”

“Based on what?” He asks, amused.

“Potions, Ancient Runes, Charms, Astronomy, History of Magic, Defense Against the Dark Arts,” she says, ticking them off on her fingers.

“You memorized my class schedule?”

“Not on purpose,” she shoots back, her face flushing. He grins a little wider, enjoying Clarke Griffin blushing. Who knew she could ever be off her game, much less that he could be the one who put her there? “I’ve got a good memory. Shut up.”

“Okay.” He hoists himself up next to her, flicking his wand lazily to redirect the bin toward the sink. “Then tell me: why does a future healer want to take Muggle Studies?”

Her smile dims and she looks down at her hands.

“Did you know my dad went to a muggle university?”

“No. But then again, I didn’t know you were a potions whiz until this week, so…”

“Shut up,” she says again, bumping his shoulder with hers. “It’s not my mom’s footsteps I’m really trying to follow. I want to go to a muggle medical school, and then decide whether I want to work in a muggle hospital or at St Mungo’s. My dad always thought information should be shared instead of guarded, and I think he was right.”

Bellamy doesn’t miss the way she uses the past tense when she talks about her dad.

“I think so too,” he says, instead of mentioning that. “And it’s very you.”

“Yeah?” She asks, delighted.

“Yeah.” His wand twitches in his hand and sends suds flying across the room, so he mutters the charm to dissolve them before Clarke notices the mess. When he looks back to her, she’s still watching him expectantly, so he adds, “You never do what I expect.”

She blinks once, twice, her blue eyes clear and bright, the mole above her lip distracting as her lips pull back in a small smile. And then her lips are brushing against his, so soft and fleeting he’s almost not sure it happened.

He wets his lips and they taste faintly like pumpkin juice and cinnamon and something else he can’t put his finger on, but she definitely kissed him. He didn’t just make that up.

“The look on the face tells me you weren’t expecting that either,” she says, and she sounds a little nervous.

“Should I have been?”

“I didn’t think I was being subtle.”

He laughs and leans in again, and this time he’s sure of it. She smells clean and sweet and her fingers tug gently at his curls, and when he pulls back to check her reaction she chases his mouth. He's almost lost himself in it when a crash startles them apart.

“Oops,” he whispers, and she’s giggling against his side as he waves his wand, trying to repair the broken dishes before Gina comes in to investigate the noise. “Guess I’m not great at multitasking.”

“This is what I get for interrupting you at work,” she says, pressing a kiss to his cheek before hopping down and brushing herself off cheerfully. “You should get back to it.”

“I’m going to be useless for the rest of my shift,” he admits, flicking suds at her. “I’ll find you when I get back?”

“I’ll meet you at the one-eyed witch.” At his look of confusion, her smile settles into a slight smirk. “More privacy than the main entrance,” she says, and his ears grow hot. “Don’t worry, I know all the best secret passageways.”

She’s out the door before he can fumble any kind of response. His shift drags on forever and the smile stays affixed to his face the whole time. Good thing he can hide in the back room, because he's not even trying to get rid of it.

 

He’s not sure how Clarke wrangled her way into his life, or how she seems to fit there so perfectly. But it feels a little bit, to him, like magic.


End file.
